HERO Updates, Notes and News-August 7

The big HERO news is still the failure of the haters to collect enough signatures to get it on the ballot this fall.  But as we expected, the faith based oppressors went there and filed a lawsuit Tuesday to force their way onto the ballot.

They're trying to claim the sampling by City Secretary Anna Russell is satisfactory enough to get them over the 17,269 signature threshold to place the HERO on the ballot.

City Attorney Dave Feldman is stating that the numerous errors and violations of procedures in collecting those petitions invalidates enough of those petition to where it did fail.

The haters have no one to blame but themselves for the half-assed job they did in collecting signatures, and now they're trying to skirt the rules in court.   The deadline to put any ballot or referendum on the upcoming November 4 ballot is August 18, which is why they filed the suit as quickly as they did. 

And naw CultureMap, people's civil or human rights should NEVER be put to a vote.  But I guess if you weren't a white male who doesn't have to face discrimination of an almost daily basis you'd have a different opinion about that.

Moving on to what's at stake if this does make it to the ballot, as many of Team HERO folks warned in the runup to HERO passage, Bloomberg News has posted a July 31 story warning that if the HERO is repealed, the 2017 Super Bowl now scheduled to be played at NRG Stadium could go bye bye along with the estimated $350 million that it would bring to our H-town economy.

So the question I have to ask to Max Miller, James Nash, FN Williams and all the other kneegrow sellouts in the Baptist Ministers Association of Houston and Vicinity cooning it up with Dave Welch and his right wing friends.

Is your faux faith-based hatred of LGBT peeps being covered in the HERO worth costing the city a Super Bowl?

There was an interesting development during the Forward Times forum that was scheduled to talk about the HERO interestingly enough on August 4.   The news dropped about the failure of the faith-based haters to get the required signatures one hour before the forum's 6 PM start time.   Max Miller and Kathy Blueford-Daniels had been invited by the forum organizers to discuss the opposition viewpoint. They cancelled on the Forward Times forum organizers at the very last moment via e-mail after previously confirming their appearance before the date.

"Due to the Mayor’s announcement of invalid signatures of our petitions and the upcoming court proceedings, it is with my apologies that we will not be attending the forum tonight."
     
Obviously that didn't sit well with the Forward Times organizers, and TaShon Thomas let fly with this column in the online version of the newspaper  

I have always been one who is open to hearing opposition and trying to understand where they are coming from, but it is impossible for me to do that if they do not show up when it is important. The mayor’s announcement should have not deterred the petition leaders from attending the forum; it should have been a rallying cry.

If you truly care about bettering the city of Houston and believe the ordinance would lead to its downfall, then you should use whatever avenue is given to you to get your point across. Do not just say you are going to attend and back out at the last moment as though you are cowering in defeat. Especially now since the window for the repeal to be placed on the ballot is approaching fast.

I was definitely looking forward to the opportunity along with the 60 people in the CWA Hall Monday night to ask Max Miller and Kathy Blueford-Daniels some questions about why they were selling out the community.  

Oh well, I'll hopefully get an opportunity to do so soon, because I'm very interested in hearing his responses to my questions. Already had the opportunity to rebut Kathy's headscratching reasons for opposing a comprehensive HERO ordinance that will benefit her and other Houstonians.

The battle to keep the HERO continues.